#peaky blinders oc

[wonderlanddreamer]

You're just the girl all the boys wanna dance with, and I'm just the boy who's had too many chances.

[Lydia Shelby drabble]

"You're tense," she murmured softly, her delicate hand squeezing his as he guided her through a graceful twirl. It was impossible not to be tense, standing in the dimly lit heart of the club owned by the notorious Shelby brothers. The air was thick with smoke and the rhythmic pulse of jazz, yet all he could focus on was her — Lydia Shelby. She was no longer the little girl he remembered, but a stunning young woman whose presence commanded the room.

Her eyes sparkled with mischief, a knowing smile playing on her lips as she drew closer, their bodies moving in perfect harmony. He couldn't quite believe she had chosen him tonight, out of all the admirers who watched them with envy, their gazes burning with longing. Lydia, with her grace and allure, could have danced with anyone, but she had whispered a soft 'yes' to him.

He leaned in closer, his lips brushing her ear. "It's hard not to be tense when I'm dancing with the woman every man in here dreams of," he confessed, his voice a low, velvet whisper.

As the music swirled around them, he couldn't help but feel a surge of triumph mixed with a tinge of vulnerability. He was a rebellious young man with a bad reputation, and yet here he was, with the young woman every man wanted to hold close. Her perfume, intoxicating and sweet, wrapped around him like a promise, drawing him further into her world, blissfully unaware of the lurking danger behind the piercing blue eyes that watched him intently from the shadows.

[novashelby]

Do You Have Mummy Issues, Evie? Evie(OFC) x Tatiana

Pairing: Evie x Tatiana

Warnings: Mentioning of Mummy issues-mummy kink, dubcon

This is a sneak peek at an upcoming one shot

“I found your little box,” the Duchess whispered in her ear. Evie knew what box. The little box of all her special things. “The box of fun things. Just the special things you hide from your father.” The young girl tensed as foreign fingers scratched down her arms down to her waist, only to wrap themselves around like a snake.

Evie couldn’t muster many words. “Shouldn’t be in my room-”

“But if daddy won’t make sure his little girl is behaving,” she teased, resting her chin on the quivering shoulder. “Shouldn’t mummy?” At that, Evie attempted to push herself off, but Tatiana held strong. “Lace panties…red, white, black, pink. Where are you wearing those at your age? Hm? Whose money did you buy those with?”

Evie grunted, trying to push with her elbow before digging her nails at Tatiana’s hands. “What are you getting at?!” Evie, not one to stick her nose into her father’s business, hardly even knew who this woman was. If not for the accent, she’d assume she was nothing, but a whore. It had to have been the woman her father talked about in secrecy. 

Tatiana enjoyed the little deer trying to fight. Not strong, neither in words nor physicality. It was cute, if not a little pathetic. She clicked her tongue in mock disappointment. “Red lipstick, red nail polish. Hasn’t daddy told you that those are grown up lady colors? Didn’t think you were so grown up.” 

Evie eased her shoulders. “You surely have money to buy your own, so what do you want?”

“I don’t think it’s about what I want.” Her skin crawled as the woman pressed her lips against Evie’s ear. “I think it’s about what you need. Do I need to remind you of what else I saw in that little fun box, Evelyn?” A lump formed in Evie’s throat as her eyes slowly shifted to her bed. On her pillow was a glass phallic shaped object. She felt Tatiana’s lips turn upward in a smirk. “You seem a bit ashamed now, are you ashamed?”

“Get out of my room,” Evie said, in a mere whisper.

“You are ashamed,” she teased, pinching at the girl’s cheeks. “Hm? That is quite cute, actually. But I will tell you, if you are a good girl, I won’t tell daddy. Mummy may even show you how to use it, safely and effectively.”

[call-sign-shark]

Heaven in Your Eyes || Arthur Shelby x You

Summary: It was supposed to be an entertaining evening. Boxing fights, booze and party. It wasn't supposed to be one of the worst days of your life. || Featuring Tommy Shelby x Reader

Words: 4.5k

TW: angst+++, alteration of canon events, canonical violence, depictions of slaughter and body horror, main character death, Reader's husband dying, suicidal thoughts, graphic murder. Parts in bold are direct quotes from the show. Parts in Italics are direct quotes from preceding chapters. Also, Tommy will take more space in the next chapters.

Notes:

✞ Shorter chapter because it's extremely violent and angsty. Also, I'm super rusty so I tried to write it in a more direct style so it's prolly less poetic and beautiful.

✞ This is chapter 16 of the Arthur Shelby x You series Heaven in Your Eyes. Each chapter can be read as stand-alones but reading the whole series will make the experience far more intense.

PREVIOUS || Masterlist || NEXT PART

The extraordinary general meeting of the Shelby Ladies Club.

This is what Polly called this unexpected little meeting in the bathroom right in the middle of the rigged fight happening a few rooms away. When you entered the lavatory with Ada complaining about the sparring between Goliath and Bonnie, Aunt Pol was taking a cigarette from the silver case she was holding while Lizzie was fixing her hair.

“I love your messy bun, Heaven.” Lizzie complimented when she saw your reflection in the mirror she was using.

“Thank you Liz. Ada scolded me and decided that it would be a better hairstyle for tonight.”

“You never style your hair except for braids and it’s a fucking shame considering how beautiful and long your white mane is.” The young Shelby sister insisted.

“If you say so,” You snorted, amused, “What are you doing here? Plotting and scheming? Leave these for Thomas.” You smirked, sitting on the edge of a sink with movements as nimble as a cat. Your little cutting remark had the expected effect: the three girls laughed with sincerity, somewhat amused by the beef between you and the family’s boss. They had eventually learned that nothing could ever ease the tension between the two of you, so laughing about the matter was the only thing they could do. A part of you couldn’t help but think that they wouldn’t find it that amusing anymore if they knew the unhealthy turn your mutual hatred had taken.

What did you feel when we kissed? A shiver ran down your spine as you heard Tommy’s husky voice, as charming as venomous, whispering in your ear. It might only have been a memory, but you could almost feel his hot whisky breath brushing your skin.

“Heaven has some news.” Polly’s voice resounded in the bathroom, snatching you from your thoughts.

“Me?” You asked, batting your bambi lashes in incomprehension before the understanding of the situation slapped you right in the face.

“Well, tell her. Now! While the men are screaming for blood.”  Polly sneaked a cigarette between her thin, red lips. 

Your blood momentarily froze in your pale veins for this unexpected pregnancy wasn’t something you wanted to talk about. For sure Aunt Pol didn’t mean to do harm, but the surrounding chaos and your last encounter with Luca Changretta seriously eroded your wish to have a baby. The baby who made you so vulnerable during times that were anything but good. Moreover, a quick glance at Lizzie’s sad and anxious eyes had been enough for you to understand that something was weighing on her shoulders. Something you had guessed for a few days. Something she needed to talk about more than you. The corner of your mouth turned up in a half-smile.

“Well, I discovered something about Lizzie but I think she should be the one making the announcement. Shouldn’t you, Lizzie?” You winked, replacing one of your long white strands of hair behind your pierced ear with a naive pout. Glitters of hope and gratefulness suddenly sparkled in the ocean blue of the secretary’s eyes to whom you replied with a discreet nod before grabbing Polly’s cigarette case.

“I’m up the duff. And it’s Tommy’s.”

You took a long drag on the cigarette and slowly exhaled the smoke by your nostrils as the attention was now on Lizzie. Even though Ada almost choked on her sip of gin, she quickly showed interest in the tall woman’s pregnancy. The only one you didn’t fool was old and cunning Aunt Pol who gave you a brief “okay I get it” glance before turning back to Lizzie.

It’s a girl. Call her Ruby. Ruby Shelby. She’ll be a star in a Hollywood movie.

You watched the scene with a light smile floating upon your plump and glossy lips, satisfied by the outcome of your little trick as well as the surprising unconditional support Lizzie was receiving after years of being seen only through her job as a prostitute. Admittedly, the reason behind the little push you gave to Lizzie Stark was purely selfish, but you couldn’t deny the fact that you kind of liked the woman despite never really interacting with her. She got the attention, and you got peace. It was a win-win situation.

“Congratulations, Lizzie.” You said, your siren-like voice as soft as a lazy ocean.

“She’s a real Shelby lady now. Just like you, Devil.”  Polly’s smirk betrayed her amusement. You rolled your eyes teasingly before proudly showing your left hand and wiggling your small fingers to display the magnificent wedding ring Arthur had gifted you.

“What about you Hev? When are you planning to give us a little Arthur?” Ada suddenly asked, Lizzie's news had visibly rendered her sour mood better.

“I think one Arthur is enough for now, don’t you?” You got up from the sink and carefully smoothed the folds your revealing black dress, “Anyway. Ladies, let’s rejoin our gentlemen.”

“I guess the meeting is over.” Ada added with a little chuckle

Joining deeds to words, Polly gently hooked her arm with yours in a motherly gesture and guided you outside, where the crowd’s roars were echoing.

Laughs and cheers filled the room as Johnny Dog put on a show to get more men to bet on the winner of this fight. Swallowing a mouthful of gin, your seraphic traits turned into a wince at the burning sensation the alcohol left in your throat – that new batch was strong, indeed. The sweet taste that exploded on your tastebuds, when the tip of your rosy tongue licked your juicy lips, made you grin, or maybe it was the all-consuming smell of sweat and blood that lingered in the air. It might come off as surprising for other women, but you enjoyed watching fights. There was something brutal but so real about them. After all, humans were just animals wearing suits. Animals which, according to you, had barely learned to speak instead of growling.

Your lips pinched the cigarette as you took another drag you quickly blew, your eyes following blood spurting from Bonnie’s nose and splattering the ground. Although quieter than Polly, Lizzie, and Ada, who were laughing, screaming, and sometimes nudging you in excitement at each violent blow the Romani boy gave back to his opponent, you had a lot of fun. Until a peculiar but familiar feeling blossomed within.

It started with a chill creeping down your spine and ended up with light tremors shaking your frail silhouette. Instinctively, you raised your piercing gaze and searched for Arthur somewhere among the crowded rows of folded seats. Your usual calm demeanor faltered as you noticed that your husband seemed troubled by something, rapidly glancing from here and there, attempting to read the room for whatever reason. He didn’t even pay attention to you, far too busy observing the men that were around the boxing ring. Eventually, Arthur stood up and left, his steel blue eyes fixed on someone he followed through the depths of the building. Let me do my fucking job! That’s what he barked at Tommy, or at least what you thought you overheard.

You frowned as a strange sensation rippled through your mind – like a distant, haunting whisper of something looming, a threat. Nervously swallowing your saliva, your first reflex was looking at Tommy. You couldn’t place it, but the odd feeling gripped you tightly like an omen you couldn’t shake, warning you of an approaching storm. It seemed like little King Shelby shared your inner agitation though, for his mesmerizing turquoise eyes dived into yours with the same nervousness and incomprehension. Whatever the many reasons behind your hatred, you were definitely on the same wavelength at this very moment. The silent conversation, expressed through brief eyebrows and eye movements, was more or less the following:

-Where is he going?

-I don’t know. It’s prolly the booze and the pills.

-It’s not. I’ll check.

-Don’t fucking do that.

You stood up from your seat with a clenched jaw and, feeling the vibration of this bad omen quaking your soul itself, you nimbly snaked in and out through seats and followed Arthur’s steps. As was the case for your husband a few minutes ago, the dark corridor into which you rushed engulfed your ethereal silhouette like a hungry giant.

“Fuck.” Tommy mumbled, straightening on his seat and leaning forward, “Fuck.” He repeated, torn between his own doubts and his disdain for you. Nevertheless, if there was one thing he had learned since you joined the family was that your gut feelings were never wrong. You proved it several times, starting by foreseeing Charlie’s abduction. The dark-haired gangster sniffed and nervously rubbed his chin, his catlike eyes going back on forth between the corridor and the crowd. A few minutes later, Tommy finally left the fighting pit.

Something was definitely off.

Cautiously walking through the maze of dark hallways dimly lit by a bluish light, you tried to ignore the maddening beat of your heart that was drumming so loud you felt it hammering in your temples. You didn’t really know where you were heading, nor where Arthur went, but the more you moved forward, the more this unbearable feeling of dread and panic invaded you. Your aimless wandering came to an end when the strong and metallic smell of fresh blood and the atrocious sight that followed jumped at your face.

No.

Your heart nearly stopped when you saw him – your husband, slumped on the ground, blood soaking through the collar of his shirt as it gushed from the wound across his throat.

No!

Time seemed to slow down, and your heart seemed to stop as you took in the scene: the gun the Italian bastard was holding in his steady hand aimed at Arthur’s head.

Panic crashed over you like a tidal wave, washing away everything but the rage that had piled up within you during all these years. In that moment, something primal and destructive snapped inside of you. In a blur of rage and raw instinct, and with a guttural scream that seemed too inhumane to come from you, you launched yourself at the mafioso, who barely had the time to turn around. Another furious shriek escaped from your quivering lips, similar to the rabid screech of a wounded banshee, and with your fingers curled into claws, your sharp nails slashed across his face.  

“PUTTANA!” The man yelled and gasped, taken aback by your unleashed fury.

The mafioso fired with his gun in a desperate attempt to kill you but the brutal impact between your two bodies threw him off balance and the shot reached the wall instead of your brain. As his spine crashed against the tiled ground, Changretta’s henchman dropped the weapon. You gave it a brutal blow to make it slide away from him.

Another wave of insults followed as he realized that he struggled to overpower you. You were fighting like a cornered animal, wild and relentless. Your claws scratched him again and again, leaving raw and jagged lines of blood all over his face. The mafioso's strength was starting to falter as he realized that you weren’t just fighting to win; you were fighting to kill him, your body moved by the instinct of a bloodthirsty beast that refused to be caged.

"Stop it, you fucking bitch!" A scream of utter pain brutally tore the air as, completely out of your mind, you dug your thumbs into his skull, pushing harder and harder in an attempt to gouge his eyes. The Sicilian man produced a second sound so twisted that it seemed beyond anything a human throat could produce. The more you pushed with your thumbs, the more you felt his eyeball turning into a viscous pulp. The feeling of the moist and warm liquid on your fingers didn’t stop you. Nor the man’s wails of pure agony, with its pitch far too high and too broken.

“Ajùtami! Ajùtami!” He pleaded, his hands felt the ground in panic, searching for anything he could use to push you away from him. Anything to make you stop. Realizing that nothing was around him, not even the thread he used to attack Arthur, he managed to overcome the pain and gather his strength to grab your throat.

With your air squeezed, you wheezed and removed your fingers from his skull to claw his strong hands. “S-Stop!” Panic flooded you as your vision blurred, black spots dancing at the edges. The harder you fought, the harder he strangled you. Seriously lacking air, you clawed at his arms, desperate to breathe, but his grip was iron. Now you had to do something and do it quickly if you wanted to have a chance to save Arthur.

Your thoughts raced, frantic, until instinct took over.

I love your messy bun, Hev!

The judas stick – now you had a chance. With one quick movement, you brought your hand to your bun and your fingers fumbled for the sharp metal judas stick that was holding your hair in place. It came in handy. With a choked sound, you drove it upward and sunk the sharp edge of the stick into the man’s side.

One time.

Two times.

Three, four, five, six…

Side, chest, shoulder, face… 

Each impact was vicious and powerful, tearing through the flesh like butter and drilling into organs and bones with the sheer will of maiming your enemy. Hot blood splashed all over you and around, but you didn’t care. The only thing that made you stop stabbing him was when you felt the man’s grip loosen around your throat until his arms dropped on the red-smeared ground in a loud thud.

“Fuck!” You sucked in a sharp breath, your voice hoarse from being choked. However, you quickly got up from the corpse to run to your husband.  “Arthur!” You screamed, rushing to his side, your hands trembling as you knelt beside him – or rather as you dropped to your knees, your legs unable to support your weight anymore. Panic seized you even more violently as you saw Arthur's deep wound and the blood—too much blood.

“No, no, no… not like this,” You whispered, voice cracking. You couldn’t lose him, not here, not now. Never. Your fingers brushed over his chest and, in your deepest desperation, you looked for his pulse. A pulse you found, but which was becoming slower and fainter as seconds flew by. “Arthur! Please!” You started sobbing, tears streaming down your face and mixing with the fresh blood that was painting your skin in a disgusting shade of red. You had to face the truth: Arthur was dying. The damages were too serious and the bleeding too much… But you were a witch. The gift of healing was coursing through your veins. The only problem was that if you tried to save him by using your magic, you’d hurt the baby. After all, that was what happened when you tried to kill Luca Changretta with a heart attack.

The baby.

Your husband or the baby?

Your heart painfully raced in your chest. Your erratic breathing and your sore throat made you feel like you weren’t getting enough air.

 “I’d love to have kids with ye, eh. Little white-haired and blue-eyed us running barefoot in the forest… Little embodiments of our love brightening our life.” His voice was merely a whisper now for he was slowly falling asleep, “I’ve always wanted to be a dad… but thought I was too messed up for that.”

You could save him. You had to. Despite this torture of a dilemma and the harshness of the decision, nothing could change your mind, not even the feeling of your heart shattering into millions of shards. Closing your eyes, you placed one hand over his throat, the blood warm under your palm, and the other on his chest. Wasting no time, you channel all your strength – the connection sparked, and the raw, untamed magic you inherited from your mother surged through you. It seemed to work at first, his pulse lightly responding to yours.

But the more the magic surged, the more you felt a terrible pain in your belly. It started as cramps but quickly escalated into suffering so high that you felt like someone was stabbing you. A trembling squeal escaped from your red lips. You were killing it, you knew it. You were killing your own baby.

"Come on, come on," You muttered, pushing harder, forcing your will into his body. "Stay with me, Arthur," You whispered, tears streaking down your face, each sentence cut by muffled cries of the mafioso you had slaughtered and who was still alive— not for too long to be honest. He seemed to say something in Sicilian but you couldn't understand what. And you didn't care. "Just... stay with me." You gritted your teeth, doing your best to put up with the pain.

Click.

You froze.

“You nosey little slut. You should've stayed with the others.” 

Your heart missed a leap at the unknown male voice, carried by a thick Italian accent. The mafioso’s colleague looked at you, gun pointed right to your head.

"Remember me?" He asked with a wicked smile, recalling the moment he had offered you a cigarette a few hours ago. During your brief chit-chat, he told you that his name was Damiano but you didn't make the connection between Changretta and his Italian heritage.

“Don't cry, you're going to meet with your husband again very soon." the imposing man added, a few seconds away from ending your life. However, Damiano didn't know what you were capable of. Even less now that you were driven by pure rage and despair.

“Shut the fuck up!” You suddenly yelled, your claws firmly anchored in your husband to make Damiano understand that no one would snatch him from your arms. Your voice, a seductive melody that could enchant like a siren’s song, suddenly sounded monstrous. Raw and primal, the way you screamed the threat echoed in the entire maze of hallways and made Tommy’s blood freeze in his veins, a few corridors away. “Fucking die!”

Damiano didn't know that he never stood a chance. You sealed that man's demise with one blunt arm movement as if you had wanted to chase a mosquito from your face.  

"Wh-What..."

Damiano, fell on his knees next to his dying friend, and writhed on the floor. With his two hands pressing on his chest, he suddenly started to choke and, right after, threw up a great amount of thick blood. Apart from the vomiting, blood soon seeped from his eyes and ears, bubbling like something inside was boiling them alive.

"P-Please!" He begged but you didn't stop. The man obviously tried to scream but the only sound he could produce was disgusting gurgles.

"Don't worry, you're going to meet your friend pretty soon." You replied with a cold and sardonic tone before closing your fist, the man's lungs responding to your gesture by imploding in his chest. Like his colleague's arms did a few minutes ago, Damiano's whole body crashed against the floor with a thud.

Quickly, you shifted back your attention to your husband and kept giving him all your energy while ignoring the black dots that were dancing in front of your eyes, as well as the awful, unbearable stabbing sensation in your core. You were definitely hurting yourself by using your power that much but you didn't give a fuck. “Arthur, please.” You growled, a feeling of dizziness building up so bad that you didn’t even hear the hurried footsteps that were coming closer, nor the hoarse, familiar voice of your brother-in-law.

"FUCK!" You exclaimed. You were losing Arthur again.

The three bodies lay strewn like discarded puppets, their lifeless forms twisted and broken on the blood-flown concrete floor. The once clean backroom had transformed into a nightmare realm of gore and horror that made Tommy's stomach turn upside-down.

The Peaky Blinder's boss took two steps back and brought his calloused hand to his mouth, fighting against the urge to puke – and God knew it took him a lot considering the atrocities he witnessed and did during the war. His turquoise gaze scanned the room, which had turned into a slaughterhouse. A fucking pool of crimson blood. First, he saw the limp and distorted corpse of Damiano, whose eyes were open wide in horror despite him being dead and cold. The terror in his frozen facial expression left no doubt about how awful his last moments must have been: he had suffered, and he had suffered more than a lot. Then, he caught a quick glimpse of the second victim. With his eyeballs reduced to a reddish foul mush, the lacerations on his face, and the abnormal number of stabbing wounds, the mafioso’s body was so maimed that it looked disgustingly grotesque.

Then he saw Arthur.

"Oh my God. Oh my fucking God — Arthur!"

Amidst the chaos, where the air hung heavy with the acrid and pungent scent of blood, Tommy's screams echoed far away in the distance as you knelt there, eyes wide open and silent tears streaming down your cheeks, mixed with dark trails of ruined mascara.

Tommy reacted immediately and knelt near his brother with a panic so uncontrollable that it swept away every ounce of coldness and self-control he usually displayed. He slapped his brother's cheeks several times in a vain attempt to help him come back to a conscious state but it didn't work. Thomas Shelby's fist hit the floor with frustration as the feeling of powerlessness crept into his heart. He was losing another brother and there was nothing he could do to save him.

But you could.

"Heaven, d'ya hear me?"

You let out a muffled whimper, or at least you thought you did as your senses saturated with one unique sound: a relentless ringing that echoed in the hollow caverns of your mind. With each pulse of your heart, the sound intensified, threatening to consume the last remnant of sanity you had left. The world around you had seemed to fade into obscurity, your sight blurry and reduced to only one color: red. Vibrant red splattered everywhere, on the walls, and yourself but most of it was on the floor. In fact, the ground itself seemed to writhe beneath the weight of the corpses, as crimson rivers flowed freely, painting the concrete in shades of crimson that gleamed like freshly spilled paint.

“Oi! Listen to me!” Tommy’s powerful voice suddenly snatched you from your daze just enough time to catch your attention and plunge his turquoise iris into your Arctic eyes.

“I—I can’t. I can’t, I can’t...” You repeated in a whisper, just like a broken record, because your husband’s pulse was weakening again, blind to your exhausting and painful efforts. Arthur was dying, your baby was dying and the intensity of the pain you went through was so insufferable that all you wanted to do was curl up in a ball and wait for death to make this nightmare stop.

Tommy rapidly shifted his body to be by your side, his sharp eyes focused, but softer than usual. “You’ve got this,” he whispered, meeting your panicked gaze. “Keep going. Don’t stop.” He pressed his hand firmly over yours, steadying the trembling fingers that worked to save his brother. His voice was low, gravelly, but laced with a quiet strength he tried to share with you. His grip was warm, grounding you in the chaos, his presence like an anchor. At that moment, the weight of the world felt momentarily lighter with him by your side. You replied to his help with a muffled sob.

"You've got this!" Tommy tried to keep you from falling apart but the sight of a thin trickle of blood slowly running down your nose worried him almost to death. He looked at you and he knew. He knew that you had given everything – every ounce of your energy to save his brother, your magic now drained. Your hand trembled, still pressed to Arthur’s chest, but the world around you was seriously fading to black.

Caught amid this Hell with Tommy by your side, you didn't hear nor feel Polly, who had found the crime scene.

"Oh lord please help us, oh Lord, oh Lord..." Polly cried, horrified by the bloodbath as well as by the sight of you clinging to Arthur's limp body. She had already lost one of her nephews and couldn't bear the weight of losing another one. Not her sweet Arthur. Not him,

"We're fucking losing her too!" Tommy exclaimed, "fucking help me!"

"Heaven!" She called, grabbing your shoulder and shaking you but all you did was scream one last time. A haunting and otherworldly wail that pierced the darkness. A sound so agonizing and inhumane that it seemed to tear at the very fabric of existence. It echoed across the building, carrying with it the weight indescribable of sorrow and despair as your arms tightened your grip around your dying husband.

The smell of blood hid Tommy's musky perfume that was tingling your nostrils. The deafening ringing in your ears covered Polly and her nephew's voice. Your breaths came shallow and weak, your body becoming heavier as darkness crept in. Slowly, your eyes fluttered shut. In one final movement, you collapsed beside your husband, your last thought a silent hope that he would live.

Or that you would at least die trying to save him.

✞ Any comment, review, reblog, or constructive criticism is welcome. Your reactions really motivate me and keep me alive, so please don't be shy. English is not my first language. gif by the wonderful @alicent-targaryen.

✞ Taglist: @adaydreamaway08 @theshelbyclan @jomarch-wannabe @esposadomd @woofgocows @anathemasworld @anastasia000 @kate654 @kxnnxy @babayaga67 @meowtastick @shelbyssins @sarai-ibn-la-ahad @bluevenus19 @raincoffeeandfandoms @kishie8 @zablife @alexandra-001 @alexizodd @helen06dreamer @kmc1989 @peakyswritings @peakyltd @chaosinkest1996 @vanhelsingsbigtoe @cherubswhispers @lokigirlszendaya @justrainandcoffee @mischievouslittlecreature

[heavencanbeaprisontoo]

The Sun and The Moon

(Prologue: Meeting By the Sea) Alfie Solomons x Shelby!OC

Summary: In early November of 1917, you are over a year into your service to the Crown as a volunteer nurse. Following a hollow victory, you make your acquaintance with one Alfie Solomons. WC: 3.1K Warnings: Mentions of war, death, g-re, v-mit, foul language, angst, psychological distress, etc.

November. 7, 1917.

You know you need to hurry. It's almost nightfall; you won’t have much light left to write in. Yet you cannot help but linger at the sight of today’s victory. Before you, there is an ocean. It is a vast sea of gray, thick, and cold. Unfeeling and joyless. An ocean of standing water, crumbling buildings, and miles upon miles of mud. The buildings once housed people, but now they resemble the ruins of a bygone era. A necropolis.

Rolling clouds of dirt and gunpowder float just above the ground like phantoms. It’s the only piece of this that reminds you anything of home. Beckoning to the fog and soot that rolled in the early mornings when you would walk with your brothers to Charlie’s yard. Behind you, white tents flap in the wind, and cloth clings to metal rods that hold the structure in place. A field hospital. The only taste of civilization left for miles.

Rings meant to fasten the flaps down rattle like windchimes against the winds. A sudden updraft carries the stench of decay from the trenches up to where you stand. You press a cloth into a small bottle of peppermint oil. Quickly, you put that cloth on your nose. One of the first things you learned after joining the VADs was to keep your feet dry and to have plenty of peppermint oil on hand. It wards off the smell of rot, both in the living and the dead. The first time you smelled it, you vomited. Now, you barely gag. Still holding the cloth to your nose, you turn back to the field hospital.

Your name is Maeve Shelby, and you are twenty-four.

It’s warmer inside the tents. Uncomfortably so. The warmth is from all the bodies; most lay about in cots; the rest are your fellow VADs and doctors. Humidity mixed with stagnant sweat and all the bed pans that ever come clean enough to be rid of acrid remnants. To save yourself from having to sit in the midst of it all, you set aside a chair for yourself at the mouth of the field hospital. It is a plain, simple wooden chair with one leg shorter than the other three. Beside it is a stack of empty ammunition boxes. You have a small lantern weighing down an unfinished letter. With a sigh, you sit down and resume your writing from earlier that day: 

Dearest Aunt Polly, Ada, and Finn ,

I know once my letter finds you that this will be well-known, but the Allies have finally claimed victory here in Ypres. The soldiers say we are nearly finished ousting the Germans from Passchendaele. Only a few remain. Too injured to retreat. It won’t be long before we can claim this as ours. Still, we have yet to celebrate. It’s strange. All these months we spent fighting, and this doesn’t feel like a victory. So many lives were lost. There are too many to even try to count.

My work keeps me busy, but it is at night when my mind is most busy. Even with the fighting stopped, it has been difficult to find the dead and the wounded. I do not know where these men will be put once they’re found. We have hardly any beds left to offer. I have taken to sleeping in a chair by the entry to the main tent. Partly to free a bed for those that need it, partly to keep an eye out for any soldiers still trying to make it back. 

For so long, all I’ve done is race from place to place. Now all I do is change bandages, sooth the restless, and listen for the wounded who remain stuck in the trenches. Those still well enough to fight are sent out to recover their comrades. It’s hard work. Idle bombs and lurking landmines are all still out there. Some men come back worse than they left.

I know that the boys aren’t out there, but still, I strain to listen for them. John, Arthur, and Tommy. In my dreams, I do hear them. Just as I know, you hear them in your dreams too, Polly. It makes me wake with such a fear in me that my feet carry me forward before I’m fully awake. I rush toward that ocean of muck and blood, and I stop only when my fingers pierce the earth; the feel of it under my fingernails brings back my senses for some reason. 

I wonder if all the victories we’ve won felt like this. I wonder if, when all is said and done, any of this will amount to anything at all. Does anyone remember why we’re even here? Who will take our bodies home if none of us survive?

“God,” you say, taking your pen and scratching out the last line. Then, you scratch out the last paragraph. You cross out line after line. They don’t need to read this. This madness. It was good of Ada to back out of volunteering. Not just because of this lonely sea of mud and blood, but for little Finn, too. With you and the three eldest men gone, someone needed to take care of him. Mom has been dead for almost five years now. Father may as well be dead; he felt like a ghost when he was home anyway. Aunt Polly was holding up “the business,” from what you could gleam from Ada’s letters back to you.

In the year you’ve spent out on the fields, you have yet to receive a letter from your brothers. Not that you blame them. All of you are on the move. What you know of their state comes from Ada, or Polly. Arthur and Tommy are together, which somewhat soothes you. You think of John often. He’s in France with Danny and Jeremiah. I think you joined so that you could look after your brothers. It’s been years since you’ve seen them in person. Who knows what state they may be in? There are men behind you who will never be whole. Broken bodies, shattered minds, and more scar tissue than flesh. Are your brothers as you remember them? You hate to linger on the thought.

You fold your ruined letter three times and rip it in half. The give-and-take of it feels good somehow. It reminds you of something you read once about children being destructive to gain some form of control. You can’t control how long this war lasts, when you can come home, what home you return to, or what state you find your brothers in, but you can control this paper. So, you rip it again. And again. Each tear becomes more jagged and childish. You throw up your hands, and the bits of paper fly away in the cold November winds.

‘Snow from Birmingham to Belgium,’ you crack a small smile.

You once dreamed of journeying across Europe. It was a lovely fantasy filled with long train rides and French pastries. Winking at handsome strangers while hiding your smile behind a lacy white glove. Now, you feel like you’ve seen too much of it. When all this fighting is over, maybe you’ll take a holiday to Margate. Clean your memory with a long look at an ocean of water instead of this hellscape.

“Shelby!” Your head turns sharply to see Nurse Burgess charging towards you. Her round face was blotchy as always, her thin lips drawn down in a harsh frown. “Miss Shelby, you are needed in the back.”

Tucking your scented hanky back into your apron, you ask, “Is someone in throes?” Some men, in the throes of despair, couldn’t always tell the difference between a nurse and a German soldier.

Her meaty hand takes you by the upper arm and says, “No, I need you to keep an eye on someone.” Nurse Burgess drags you through the maze of malaise swiftly, despite the growing night. The nurses have navigated this place in near darkness many times now. You could probably make it from one end to the other, blindfolded. Tonight, the field hospital was quiet aside from the moaning. Nurse Burgess guides you deeper inside the field hospital with a hoarse, “It’s Captain Solomons; that bastard won’t lay still, and I haven’t the time to keep on him.”

You try to keep your voice low as soldiers in their cots roll over to follow you and Nurse Burgess’ mad dash. “Captain Solomons? I thought he was sedated, heavily!”

Nurse Burgess, on the other hand, has no such qualms. She hollers, “That man is a bloody bear. We keep trying to give him more, and he shoos us off. Now, he won’t stop trying to get out of his cot... with a blown-out leg!” Two soldiers sat on their cots with a barrel between them. They played cards under the glow of a flickering candle on their shared nightstand. As you passed, they snickered.

“I can’t imagine he would be able to move much; Doctor Gill said he nearly lost that leg,” you noted wearily. Burgess was nearly done with her escorting or you; the back of the tent was not far off. You stepped over a pool of what could have been rainwater, bile, or piss. There is no point in stopping to check.

At the back of the field hospital lay two specific sorts of patients. Those who could not move and those who absolutely should not move. Captain Solomons was in the former category. Days ago, he sustained a bullet to his shin that nearly shattered it. He had been under strict orders, and a heavy dose of sedatives, to stay right where he was. Each cot in this back section has its own privacy curtain. When you first joined, you thought it was for the nurses to sleep and change in. The other nurses had a good laugh about that. When she comes upon Captain Solomons’ curtain, Nurse Burgess lets you go. S yanks back the curtain, shielding the Captain from view, and lets out a deep grunt.

You peer around her shoulder and sigh. The captain sits on the thin cot with a sterile sheet pushed down to his legs. His back is raised from the metal headboard, and he has his body turned with his good foot nearly touching the ground. Still on the bed rests his wounded leg. It lays at a stiff, awkward angle. You know he must at least be aware of its precarious state. In the dark, it’s difficult to make out all of his features.

“Captain!”

He’s a big man, with broad shoulders and heavy muscle on his back and arms. You can see it pushing against his long-sleeved undershirt. What strikes you most about him is not his mass or his leg, but his grin. His cheeky, cheeky grin.

Captain Solomons keeps on that grin as he says, “Hm, it appears I have been caught, right?” His accent is thick. You know very little about Captain Solomons aside from the most basic of details. You know he’s from London, you know that he’s Jewish, and you know that he can be difficult. The Captain’s tone remains glib as he remarks, “And you brought a friend, ‘ello there.”

“You are to be resting, Captain Solomons!” Based on her tone, you can imagine Nurse Burgess is turning purple about now. Captain Solomons gives her a boyish shrug and stays upright in his cot. That alone makes Nurse Burgess turn to you and hiss and say, “Keep him here so he doesn’t rip his bloody stitches, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” you hum. She leaves you there in the parted curtains with Captain Solomons. He regards you for a moment, then restarts his attempt at standing. You let out a sigh and hurry to him before he gains enough traction to hurt himself. Placing your hands on his shoulders, you try to ease him back into his crib. “Captain, you really must follow the doctor’s instructions.” You feel him push against your palms.

“Fuck the doctors; pardon my verbiage, but I’m about to go mad lying about this miserable lump you call a bed,” he says, putting his hands around your wrists. You are taken aback by how easily his hand wraps around your wrist. If he wanted to, it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to just shove you aside. “I need to take a walk.”

Politeness doesn’t seem to work on him, nor does roughness. While you weren’t tough like John or ruthless like Arthur, you were clever with people. You could get a sense of how someone’s mind ticked quickly. You hoped you could catch on about Captain Solomons too. “And when your stitches rip and you’ve lost your leg, what cot would you like me to move you to?”

He stops pushing against you. His chest is still heaving, and his hot breath fans your cheeks. You swallowed thickly; you really underestimated how close you were to him. This is a is a big, big man. One who had rumors of a violent temper that took very little to agitate.

“You have been injured and are lucky to be alive. And you still have all your parts, Captain. Why are you risking that just to go on a fucking walk?” He stares you down with a furrowed brow. For a moment, you worry you’ve poked the bear a bit too hard. “If you refuse to take the doctors seriously, what do you think the men who answer to you will do? They’ll all be trying to walk about despite their pain and end up injuring themselves for pride.”

Solomons puts you at ease when he sits back on the cot, releasing your wrists. “I can’t just lay about like this. I’ll lose the rest of my marbles waiting around for those doctors to get these stitches out. There’s not a single thing a man can do to occupy his mind in this place. It smells of piss, rot, and pus. If they would give me back my knife, right? I could cut out a little window in this tarp behind me and get a whiff of fresh air. But they won’t. Where’s the respect, hm?”

You cross your arms and ask, “So, you’re bored?”

He stiffens. Oh, you hit the nail right on the head with that one. You can’t exactly blame him. The longer you stand still, the faster all your fears catch up with you. All those ugly things you’ve seen and heard find you. That’s why the soldiers play cards and the nurses trade that single copy of ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘A Room with a View’ back and forth. Distraction. “If you can stay still where you are, I can try to get a book or a deck of cards. Would you like that?”

With a sweeping gesture to the darkness, he says, “Can’t exactly read a page or play a hand in the dark, now can we love?”

Shaking your head at his childish attempts at derailing your little plan, you take out a matchbox from your apron. With your last matchstick, you bring life to a lantern by his bed. You turn to face him, a warm orange light reflecting on your face. In the dim lighting offered by the lantern, you can see the Captain’s face. He’s young for a man of his rank. And handsome, you can admit as much in your own mind. His eyes are bright, and his features are deeply masculine. A hard jawline with a prominent brow and pouty lips. Most soldiers, regardless of rank, are required to be clean-shaven. This is not true for Captain Solomons. He has a well-maintained moustache and beard, cut close to his jawline. You heard from somewhere that Solomons was an exception due to his faith or his demeanor. Captain Solomons is looking up at you, too. His expression was all aglow. Bright gray eyes stare at your face. Confused almost as they regard you.

“Do we have a deal, Captain?”

He’s still staring at you, his brow furrowed as he studies your face. Finally, he says, “If you can get ‘Frankenstein,’ I’ll stay put. That’s a piece of fiction I can sit with for a good bit of time.”

You beam at him and take the chance to push his healthy leg under his blanket. Solomons grumbles, “Easy now, easy. I’m injured, remember?” He allows you to gently move him safely into his cot.

Finding the nurse who had taken possession of the book was no easy task, but she was quick to give it to you when you informed her a captain had asked for it. When you came back with the book, Solomons was still in bed. You thanked a God you no longer believed in and handed him the book. Just as you attempted to leave, Captain Solomons made an admission: “My eyes, yeah, they don’t pinch up the written word so easy these days. If there’s not a grisly scene out there for you to attend to, might you do me the service of reading this aloud for me?”

For a moment, you think about refusing. You never know when you’ll be called away. But then again, you’re the one who came up with the idea to get him a distraction anyway. Settling down at the edge of his bed, you take the book from his hand and begin to read. Captain Solomons leans back against the metal headboard, listening to you begin reading the preface. What you didn’t know was that this was the start of a near-nightly ritual. Captain Solomons would attempt to slink out of bed to go'stretch his leg(s)’ until you would rush over to distract him with another book or game of cards. He became a welcome distraction for you as well. A friend, almost. Perhaps more than that, if the way he kissed you one cold night in late November told you anything.

His lips were as soft as they looked. 

Whether it was friendship or not, it lasted for about a month. Captain Solomons and his men were removed from the area for transport to the west. You and your fellow VADs would go north. He didn’t stop to say goodbye to you, which bothered you. The morning after he kissed you was the day you found out about the move. And he was already gone.

In one year and three days, the war would be over. You would return home to find that all your brothers had survived. But they weren’t quite themselves anymore, and neither were you.

[evita-shelby]

Snake in the Grass

noun 1: a treacherous person, especially one who feigns friendship. 2: a concealed danger.

--Dictionary.com

thanks @mischievouslittlecreature for sending that ask 🖤

[prettybillycore]

"For Tommy" Series Masterlist

UPDATED: 5/14/24

Pairing(s): Thomas Shelby x Original Character

Universe: Peaky Blinders

Summary: Veela and Seer- a powerful combination of traits for one person to have. Edith Lillian Scamander falls in love with a young Thomas Shelby while working in a nurse’s ward during WWI. Will her feelings be requited, or will she be doomed to pine over the man of her dreams for eternity hopelessly?

Rating: Teen ✦ prologue | Your sister, Edith Lillian ✦ letter #1 | Yours, Thomas Shelby ✦ ONE ✦ letter #2 | All My Love, Lilli Scamander ✦ letter #3 | Sincerely, Your Peaky Blinder ✦ TWO ✦ letter #4 | Farewell, Edith Lillian ✦ letter #5 | Much Love and Hope, Edith Lillian ✦ THREE ✦ letter #6 | All My Love, Thomas Shelby ✦ letter #7 | Tread lightly, Newt

Read it on AO3 //

[scarletlove2]

Yippee mood bored for more useless stuff

Resident evil👇

⁎‧·‧̩̥˟*̥⁎‧·‧̩̥˟*̥☾𖤓☽*̥˟‧̩̥·‧⁎‧·‧̩̥˟*̥

⁎‧·‧̩̥˟*̥⁎‧·‧̩̥˟*̥☾𖤓☽*̥˟‧̩̥·‧⁎‧·‧̩̥˟*̥

⁎‧·‧̩̥˟*̥⁎‧·‧̩̥˟*̥☾𖤓☽*̥˟‧̩̥·‧⁎‧·‧̩̥˟*̥

Peaky blinders👇

⋆₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆˚₊‧꒰ა◯໒꒱ ‧₊˚‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

⋆₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆˚₊‧꒰ა◯໒꒱ ‧₊˚‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Devil may cry👇

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

[shion-ah]

Death of me

Cillian Murphy as Thomas Fucking Shelby

"Do you honestly think I could ever forget?"

Hayley Atwell as Katherine Redwine

"Christ...just tell him or I will."

Annabelle Wallis as Grace Burgess

"Is that jealousy I hear?"

Joe Cole as John Shelby

"You'll always be a Shelby never get that."

Paul Anderson as Arthur Shelby

"Don't worry luv, we got you. Who do I gotta kill?"

Sophie Rundle as Ada Shelby

"You've always been there for me, of course I'll be here for you."

Helen McCrory as Polly Grey

"Us women are smarter. Now chin up, we have a job to do."

Chapter One

The air of Small Heath seemed to have a way of sticking to your skin or clothing. It left you feeling almost sticky and sweaty from the grim that would collect no matter how careful you chose to be. The people had grown used to such things and one could never be too precious about their clothing. Children seemed to run wild with their dogs and friends, men in the factories returning home covered in soot and the women trying to keep their homes cleaned to the best of their ability. Katherine Redwine had been brought up on Watery Lane and in her young mind, she believed that this was always going to be the case. “Kat, are you listening?” The annoyed voice of Ada rang through her ears pulling her attention away from the window. “Yes, of course. You were saying?” Katherine gave her friend a smile and lifted her cup of tea to her lips. It was rare that the two girls got moments like this and she didn’t mean to waste her time lost in the clouds. Ada watched Katherine with a sad smile of her own. Since the war Katherine hadn’t been the same, which she supposed was the common saying amongst the rest of the world. “I was saying that I think it is time that we get you back out there. You are a beautiful girl and I know anyone would be lucky to have you.” Ada leaned forward in her chair and crossed her ankles. “He wouldn’t want you to live like this. Pat-” “I’m alright I promise, I am just not ready. There’s still too much to do right now.” It wasn’t a complete lie. Since the men had come back home it had been a hard adjustment for her. First her brother had been killed and the man she had loved for most of her life had simply turned his back and had barely spoken a full sentence to her. And now that same man seemed to have found more trouble as if he had been fishing for it. Katherine shook her head placing the cup down back on the table giving the young Shelby woman’s hand a small squeeze. “But in the meantime I look forward to hearing all about how sweet and kind Freddie is.” At the mention of Freddie Thorne, Ada's cheeks began to flush, the usual reaction when the man was pulled into the conversation or whenever Ada told her friend of the latest escapades the two had gotten into. Katherine watched as Ada continued to talk about how much she loved Freddie and the latest times they had to meet up in secret, the forbidden romance felt like a dream she had had once. She had been so young when she first met him but those blue eyes of Thomas Shelby would forever haunt her. She was sure she would die with the image of his eyes, his smile permanently imprinted into her thoughts. She had been so angry with him, the sting of her slap across his face still stung her hand when she thought about it for too long. Of course when she had heard of what he found she wanted to try to knock some sense into him. 

And now she had a sinking feeling in her gut that felt like it was growing larger and larger each time she tried to swallow. Leave it to the most clever man she knew to bring down the eye of the government, the IRA, and god knows who else by finding and taking those guns. 

Thomas fucking Shelby. 

Those words rang in her mind when her man had told her, they rang when she confronted Charlie Strong and Curly. And once she had left Ada making her way down the street and heard of his stunt with the Chinese in a show to gather more bets. Any time she had tried to tell Thomas that he was getting into things he had no business doing, he would tell her that it “wasn’t women’s business” and would drop it at that, leaving Katherine to stare at him in a mix of frustration and continued heartache. 

Katherine began to make her way to the Garrison pub for her usual one drink with Harry giving a small nod and smile to the people she passed and in return would gain her own “Mrs. Shelby” greeting. She had grown numb to the nickname and had given up on correcting those that continued to use it and she decided to see it as a type of shield. No one fucked with the Peaky Blinders and the Shelby name went a long way in Small Heath. If Thomas had taught her anything it was to appear as calm and unbothered as possible when inside you just want to shoot something, or rather someone.

“Welcome in my lady, your usual?” Harry said, placing a glass down on the bar once Katherine had entered. She made her way to the middle of the bar and took her usual seat. “Yes please, Harry.” Katherine gave the older man a kind smile and glanced about the pub. The usual bar flies were about four glasses in and only acknowledged her with a simple nod or not at all. “How have you been Harry? Haven’t been given any trouble have you?”

“None, miss. Mostly the occasional drunkard fight but it ends well enough.” Harry placed the Irish whiskey down for the Redwine and leaned on the bar top. “You look as if you need a good drink and a good sleep.” Katherine huffed a laughed at her friend’s words and shrugged taking a sip from the amber liquid. “Don’t I always look this way?” She teased tilting her head. She had always enjoyed Harry’s company; he was kind in his own way and cared for the Garrison like it should have been. This was home and he had taken care of her when she had gotten so drunk she hadn’t been able to stand and he made sure that she would never reach that low again. He had made Katherine promise to not lose herself in her grief or heartbreak. He had been the father figure that she needed after Patrick had been killed. 

“Kat, don’t bullshit me.” Harry shook his head. Katherine spun her glass slightly, his gentle but stern tone was comforting in a sense. It was the same tone he had when he found her in the private room that Thomas always used. She had broken down and cried in Harry’s arms and was more whiskey than person and she was sure her breath could have caused an explosion if she lit a match. Earlier that day they had held a service for Patrick and it had really hit her that he was gone, her big brother, her protector was nowhere to be found. Just like her Tommy, sweet happy Tommy who was able to light up a room with his smile and whose laugh was contagious seemed to have died the same night. Harry had listened as she cried and mourned the lives lost and dreams that were crushed but once she was done he picked her up and helped her upstairs and cleaned her up and put her to bed. He had banned anyone giving her any kind of alcohol in the Garrison until she was able to function. He would be damned if the sweet girl turned into one of the men he served. “I’m fine Harry, I promise.” Katherine was touched as he watched her but before he could comment the doors to the Garrison were pushed open as the one man who she couldn’t stand walked through in the most attention way he could have. 

Fucking Thomas. 

(It will get better I promise but let me know what you think!)

[runnning-outof-time]

Thank you to Flor @raincoffeeandfandoms for creating such a lovely little celebration that’s allowed me to revisit my OC Celia! This moodboard, and accompanying blurb, are set after the epilogue in the story. Enjoy! :)

A Sunny Spring Day

Warnings: none

Summary: Celia and Eden spend some time out on the grounds of Arrow House during one of the first warm days of the year.

“Mummy, look at this one!” Eden Shelby called as she ran through the field towards the tree her mother was sitting under.

“What do you have, Eden?” Celia asked, setting her copy of Thoreau’s Walden (which she was reading for the umpteenth time) down on her lap so that she could give her daughter full attention.

“I picked these purple flowers!” Eden was excited to share, the hand holding the small bouquet of flowers out in a proud manner.

“Oh, they’re pretty, sweetheart,” Celia cooed, a smile on her face as she took a better look at the flowers.

“Don’t they smell so nice?” the child was anxious to know.

“They do,” her mother happily agreed, “I believe they’re hydrangeas,” she added after studying the flowers for a few moments. There were many bushes of them scattered all over the grounds of Arrow House.

Eden brought the bouquet back up to her nose and inhaled deeply, a blissful expression forming on her face after she smelled them. “Hydrangeas smell pretty,” she confirmed, her words making her mother laugh.

“Do you want to put them in the basket as well?” Celia asked then, motioning to the basket she’d brought out with them; the basket that Eden had been placing flowers in all afternoon.

“Yes!” Eden quickly agreed before moving over and placing them securely in the basket. She then scooted over to an empty space on the blanket and sat herself down. Celia watched her with a soft smile, happy that the little girl was going to take a break from her adventuring. She’d been out and about for the entire time they’d been outside. “Do you think daddy will like the flowers?” she asked after a few minutes passed.

“Oh you’re picking those flowers for daddy?” Celia asked, her eyebrows raising in surprise as her smile grew. The slightest tinge of blush formed on Eden’s face at her mother’s question, and all that she could respond with was a bashful nod. Celia smiled at her daughter’s admission, her heart swelling, “well I think he’ll love them, darling,” she finally said, her words making the biggest smile grow on Eden’s face.

“Where did dad and Charlie go today?” Eden asked another question then, changing the topic of conversation.

“Dad took Charlie out to the stables. He wanted to see how your brother’s pony was doing,” was Celia’s answer. She had to push down the uneasy feeling that arose every time she thought about her three year old son having a pony already…even if this was the second time Tommy had done something of the sort - he got Eden a pony when she was two - it still rattled her a bit.

“Can we go and see them?” Eden asked after a few minutes had passed.

“You want to go see them now?” Celia checked, her eyebrows rasied again.

“Yes,” Eden was sure.

“Alright then,” the older of the two confirmed, setting her book to the side so that she could stand up, “help me with this blanket and we can go see what they’re up to.”

Eden jumped into gear as quickly was she could, helping her mother fold up the blanket before she swapped it for the basket of flowers she’d be giving to her father in just a few moments. She eagerly took off running in the direction of the stables then, not waiting for her mother to follow her.

Celia stayed several steps behind - she wasn’t about to run to catch up, watching her daughter as she dashed through the field of freshly grown grass. This was the first of many days that the Shelby family would be spending out in Arrow House’s grounds, and it was safe to say that this day had kicked the spring season off to a very good start.

———

Tagging some mutuals who have Peaky OCs and/or may be interest in this: @zablife @emotionalcadaver @moral-terpitude @call-sign-shark @look-at-the-soul @evita-shelby @everythingelseisextra @dearshelby

To Be Alone MASTERLIST

MAIN MASTERLIST

[onyondump]

Heaven (@call-sign-shark) and Karsa

[I haven't drawn women characters for a while so I tried to do a contrast thing where Heaven is drawn in softer cooler colors and Karsa is drawn with my usual warm and dirty colors. Also might draw them interact with Arthur together idk]

[Anyways welcome back Shark from hiatus 💕💕]

[wonderlanddreamer]

The Rook

— Chapter One

Summary: Reeling from a recent loss and seeing no light at the end of the tunnel, Tommy drives with no end in sight. But what happens when he accidentally happens upon a quiet little pub and a barmaid with a smile like sunshine?

The biting wind whipped at Tommy Shelby’s coat, offering little protection against the icy despair that gnawed at his soul. Birmingham, usually a city pulsating with his ambition, felt suffocating. The weight of his decisions, the ghosts of his past, pressed down with the force of a collapsing mine shaft. He’d stared into the abyss, and it had stared back, promising oblivion – a welcome respite from the ceaseless turmoil.

He’d almost taken it. Almost yielded to the seductive whisper of darkness. The pistol, cold and heavy in his pocket, was a dreary reminder of how close he’d come. He’d driven aimlessly until the city lights faded, replaced by the inky blackness of the countryside.

Then, a single, flickering light emerged – a small, unassuming pub nestled beside a winding road. Its sign, barely visible in the gloom, read: The Rook. Curiosity, or perhaps a perverse instinct for self-preservation, compelled him to stop.

The building was low-slung and weathered, its stone walls stained by time. Mismatched window panes, steamed with condensation, hinted at warmth within, a contrast to the chill that permeated his bones. He hesitated, his hand instinctively resting on the pistol. The thought of seeking solace, of finding even a fleeting moment of peace, felt anomalous.

But bone-deep weariness, the crushing weight of his burdens, finally won. He pushed open the heavy oak door, the bell above it jingling a discordant welcome. The air inside was thick with the scent of stale beer, wood smoke, and something else… something indefinitely comforting.

A single barmaid, wiping down the counter with an expert hand, looked up. Rosemary King, with warm brown eyes and a kind smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes, her name was embroidered on her apron in faded script. The bar itself was a rich, dark wood, polished to a high sheen, but cluttered with personal touches – a small vase of wildflowers, a framed sepia photograph weighted down by a miniature porcelain cat. Everything felt carefully tended, cherished, and loved.

The pub itself was small, cosy, radiating warmth and a sense of belonging. Mismatched chairs, some worn leather, others sturdy wood, were grouped around small, round tables, each bearing a unique chipped teacup or a faded photograph tucked into a cracked frame. The walls, painted a comforting cream, were adorned with family portraits – generations of smiling faces peering down from faded frames, a tapestry of lives lived and loved within these walls. A grandfather clock in the corner, its pendulum swinging rhythmically, ticked away the seconds. The scent wasn't just of woodsmoke and damp earth; a hint of baking bread and something sweet, perhaps apple pie, also lingered, enhancing the homely atmosphere. It felt less like a public house and more like a haven; a family's carefully kept secret.

Tommy pulled up a stool at the bar, the worn leather surprisingly soft beneath him, and stared straight forwards. He didn’t order anything, just sat, lost in the shadowy depths of his own thoughts, the warmth of the fire a meagre counterpoint to the storm raging within him.

“Evening,” the barmaid greeted, her voice as welcoming as her smile. “What can I get for you?”

“Whiskey. Neat,” Tommy replied gruffly, his tone sharper than intended. He wasn’t here for pleasantries.

She didn’t flinch at his brusqueness. Instead, she nodded and turned to retrieve a glass, her movements graceful and unhurried. “Coming right up,” she said, pouring the amber liquid with an expert hand. As she slid the glass towards him, she added, “Not many find their way to The Rook. You must be looking for some solace.”

Her perceptiveness startled Tommy. It was as if she saw right through the hardened exterior he wore like armour. “Something like that,” he muttered, taking a sip of the whiskey. It burned, but it was a welcome sensation—a reminder that he was still here, still feeling, despite the darkness that lingered at the edges of his mind.

Rosemary leaned against the bar, her demeanour open and unassuming, exuding a warmth that seemed to soften the sharp edges of the world. “Well, you’ve come to the right place. We’re not much for noise around here.”

For reasons he couldn’t quite grasp, Tommy found himself unwinding, if only slightly. Her presence was soothing, a gentle balm on his troubled mind. She seemed to offer a refuge, however temporary, from the turmoil within. “You been here long?” he asked, more to keep the conversation going than out of genuine curiosity.

“Long enough to know the regulars and their stories,” she replied with a soft laugh. “But you’re new. What’s your story?”

He looked at her, really looked at her, and saw no judgement in her gaze—only an earnest interest that was both unnerving and oddly comforting. In her eyes, he saw a flicker of understanding, as if she recognized the weight he carried. “Just passing through,” he said, deflecting, as was his habit.

“Well, Mr. Passing Through, I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for,” Rosemary said, a hint of playfulness in her tone. There was no pressure in her words, only a gentle encouragement, as if she truly wished for his peace. She straightened up and moved to attend to another customer, leaving Tommy alone with his thoughts and the unexpected warmth of her smile lingering in the air.

He sat for a long while, nursing his whiskey, the silence of The Rook a balm to his turbulent thoughts. Rosemary had checked on him twice, her kind smile a silent reassurance. He hadn't spoken much, but her presence, her quiet efficiency, had woven a thread of calm through the chaos within him. He couldn't articulate why, only that the pub's warmth had invaded him, a welcome intrusion he knew he'd need regularly.

He pushed himself up from his chair, the worn leather creaking a soft protest. He felt…lighter. The weight hadn’t vanished entirely, the ghosts of his past still whispered, but their voices were muted, dulled by the warmth he’d found within those four walls. The pistol, still heavy in his pocket, felt less like a solution and more like a forgotten burden.

He approached the bar, and Rosemary looked up, her brown eyes questioning. He gave a small, almost imperceptible nod, the gesture acknowledging her unspoken kindness. He placed a couple of shillings on the counter, more than the drink cost.

"Thank you," he rasped, his voice rough from disuse.

Rosemary smiled, a genuine, heartfelt smile that effortlessly reached her eyes. "Anytime."

Tommy stepped back out into the night, the cold air no longer biting, but bracing. The city lights in the distance no longer felt suffocating, but beckoned. He walked to his car, the decision to go home solidifying with each step. The Rook, and the unexpected peace he’d found there, had given him the strength he so desperately needed. He wasn't cured, not by a long shot, but the abyss had receded, at least for now, replaced by a faint, flickering hope. The drive home was quiet, the night a canvas of unshed shadows. He would face his problems; for tonight, home was enough.

[novashelby]

Forgive Me-Tommy Shelby Smut

Pairing: TommyxReader(third person)

Word count: 2k-ish

Summary: Tommy Shelby is attracted to his attorney's daughter, and decides to corrupt her little nun brain at work.

Prompt: "What makes you think I am going to fuck you?"

Warning: Degrading language, non-con, Dubcon, oral(m), religious banter.

@darlingsfandom

“Y’know,” Tommy said, weaving himself through the wooden pews. It was a rare occasion that he was in church as he and God didn’t talk very much. If not, at all. You see, they weren’t on the best of terms. But he could admit that. He had no shame in his religious affiliations, or lack of. But her? Looking at her kneeling in the novice robes with her hands folded was laughable, at best. Tommy pointed his finger at her, wiggling it. “This, honestly…Love, why?”

She’d been trying hard to focus on her prayer for the last thirty minutes, knelt down, hands folded. Stiffening, she rolled her eyes up and let out a long sigh of frustration. Perhaps she was a little wild in her teen years, but what did he know of any of it? He was just her father’s client. Her father was an attorney, a big wig one in London. However, she hardly ever associated with him. And the only times she ever spoke with Mr. Thomas Shelby was when she was required to go to dinner parties and he just so happened to be there. “Mr. Shelby,” she greeted, though he’d been circling the pews for quite some time.

Finally he made it to hers, sliding in and kneeling right next to her. When his elbow caressed her arm, she flinched away, giving him a wild look. Amused, he asked, “oh, sorry, is that a sin these days? I mean, you are a messenger of God…know all his updated terms of services, eh?”

Getting up, she looked down at him.  “Instead of saundering within the pews, perhaps you should head to confession, Mr. Shelby. I can direct you, if you’d like? Or….” She leaned in, a snarky grin playing on her face. “I can give you the fast pass to hell, surely the Devil can’t wait to meet his biggest fan from Birmingham, eh?” It was the mockery for him. The little teasing infliction of her voice. Eh. He reached up to grip her cheeks, but she turned away before he could. Tommy got up and followed her, and when she heard the click of his lighter, she stopped. “There is no smoking allowed in the church, Thomas. Put it out.”

The cigarette rested between his fingers. “Do the rules still apply to nonbelievers?”

“If you are such a nonbeliever,” she said, turning on her heels. “Then you’d best find better company elsewhere.” Instead of leaving, he sat on the priest’s velvet chair on the altar. He leaned back, crossing his legs as if it was his lounge chair. Luckily for her, she was the only one in the church besides a few custodians. 

“What would your father say,” he said, pointing at her with a cigarette, giving her a knowing look. “Being so disrespectful to his client. To an older person. To a man.”

“He’d say nothing,” she quipped, gathering her bag with her notes and bible. Some of her hair had been peeking through her white veil. Tommy pushed off the chair and walked over, grabbing her arm. Flinching, she pushed him off, a nasty glare on her face. “Don’t touch me-”

“C’mere,” he said, regaining his grip and pulling her in. “You’re being immodest,” he said, a teasing glint in his eyes as he poked the loose strands back under the veil. People were weak under him. Once they were trapped by his little games, it was hard to push away. And she was no different, so small under him. Like the good girl she was meant to be, she stayed in place. “You see,” he started, words muffled slightly from the smoke perched between his lips. “I don’t think this is all you. I think…I think you are here just to be a little fuckin’ brat-”

“Mr. Shelby,” she interjected. “If you don’t mind, I have to get to study.”

When she tried to move from him, he gripped tighter. “I do mind, actually.” Yes, it was true, she had a wild era once in her teens. But it stopped at dancing and drinking. Never had she ever broken the seal. The church was safe. It was to keep her safe, and never had she considered the scenario where a man had her trapped. Mr. Shelby of all men. The small of her back pressed against the side of a wooden pew, digging into her body. The edge felt sharp, even through her thick robes. “I quite like your company. I find it…redeeming? As if my soul is just cleansing being in your presence.”

“You’re mocking me,” she said in a mere whisper, their eyes connecting.

“No,” he said, sarcastically while his knee pressed between her legs. “It’s true. Forgive me, I’m just thinking….” He paused, words trailing off. “Just how much you can save me.”

“I’ll pray for you,” she said, pushing at his chest, but he was just too strong for her.

Grinning, he leaned in, forehead resting against hers. “And how do you pray? On your knees? Hmmm…that’s a good idea. You’ll pray for me, right here. On your knees. Go on, be a good little girl and get on your knees.” He stepped back and waited. His face said it all…don’t try to move. Without breaking eye contact, she slid to her knees. A nun, sure, but she knew enough about life to understand what he wanted. “What do you think you should do?” he asked, all emotion leaving his voice. Her hands reached up to his trousers, closing her eyes. To his amusement, her fingers fumbled with the belt loop, struggling. “I guess those wild years did you no good. Or are you just out of practice? C’mon.” He took over, undoing the metal clasp on his belt and unzipping his trousers.

Eyes squeezed shut, chin quivering, she sobbed. “Mr. Shelby, please-”

“It’s coming, love,” he chuckled, flicking her forehead. “Take it out.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, pleading, tears streaming down her face. “I could lose my apprenticeship!”

“Then Mr. Shelby will give you a better one,” he said, grabbing her hand and placing it against his hardening cock. “Take it out, go on. Do your job.” She couldn’t look at him while doing it; pulling the waistband of his underwear down by the hooks of her fingers. Her fingers gently caressed the cock before it came out, displayed in front of her. Gently, he lifted her chin. “Open your eyes.” Her eyes fluttered open, averting her glance from his cock. Tommy laughed, and teased, “looks like you don’t wanna be here. Come on now, put a smile on that pretty face.” He pulled the sides of her trembling lips and forced a smile upon her face. “There we go, all happy to take your father’s cock.” The words were enough to send a chill up her spine, nevermind his throbbing cock lightly teasing at her lips. Releasing her lips, he snaked his hand around her head and grabbed her hair through her veil. “That’s what you call your priest, right? Haha, Father Shelby….Fuckin’ ‘ell. Never in my life….” 

“I’ll do it,” she agreed in a whisper. Just please stop taunting me. 

“I know you will,” he said, his other hand rubbing her cheek. What he did next took her by surprise; pulling her head back and a ball of spit forming at his lips. He spit in her face. “Cause I know and you know that deep, deep down you are a dirty fuckin’ girl that craves a cock buried in her holes.” She nodded to please him, repeating that she was a dirty girl and that she wanted his cock in one of her holes. The spit was running down her cheek, dripping to her dress leaving a wet streak. 

“Ahhh,” she moaned, opening her mouth wide and sticking her tongue out. He commented how no true good girl knows how to display her mouth so pretty. Leaning in, she took the tip first; kissing, sucking with a pop. Salty and feeling like sin, his precum rested on her tongue. Deeper he had told her, hands resting on the back of her head, pressing her lightly.

His hips jerked and twitched slightly as he cursed. “Shit,” he hissed, fingers digging into the veil. “C’mon, you can take daddy in more. I know you can…Fuck, baby. How dare you try to hide this mouth from me.” Nervously, she choked and tried to back away before taking him in a little more; tongue swirling around his length. 

With a free hand, she wrapped her fingers around the base of his cock and pumped while her tongue worked the tip. Removing him from her mouth, she slid her lips in an array of kisses and licks around the shaft before taking him in again, sucking up and down, drool dripping from her bottom lip. Tommy closed his eyes, gently rocking his hips into her, head thrown back. Fuck he hissed, enjoying how her mouth was so warm and wet around him. It took all his strength not to pick her up and throw her over the altar. No, no…he couldn’t be that disrespectful. “Fuck, baby girl…You’re too good. You’re so good for me. Look at you…being such a whore for the Devil of Birmingham.” She hated to admit it, but it was getting to her; his hands, his words, his cock. Her legs were trembling with need, and it made her feel ashamed. Sucking his cock, she moaned at his degrading, taunting banter.  “Faster, whore….C’mon, take your daddy deeper.” He pushed in more. The poor girl choked as it hit the back of her throat, but he loved that. It was the best feeling; dominating a cunt’s throat. The way it would make their throat burn. It certainly made hers burn in agony, but she wanted to make him happy. He paused, thumb wiping away tears from under her eyes, giving her a moment's beak. Then, to his surprise, it was her who started bobbing her head again, looking up at him with doe-like eyes. 

Tommy didn’t break eye contact, enjoying it as some form of submission. Bobbing her head faster, her moans matched the speed. To keep him the way she wanted, she gripped his hips. “What a pretty girl,” he commented when she pulled back, allowing the pool of spit in her mouth to drip over his twitching dick. She smiled up at him, lips puffy and abused, before sucking him back in; licking, sucking, swallowing. He helped her along, feeling his orgasm build up; bucking his hips forward, faster and with better rhythm. “Good girl, my good girl…fuck! You’re going to swallow it all for me, right?”

“Mmmhm,” she moaned, cock filling her mouth as she matched his speed.

“Daddy is going to fill all those fuckin’ holes,” he said mid high. “Every one, baby girl. You’re gonna drip his cum from your tight ass and daddy’s going to breed that tight fuckin’ cunt.” His words spilled out, and after a while, he was incoherent. His orgasm ripped through him, lacing the inside of her mouth with hot ropes of cum. “F-fuck,” he groaned, getting a few last pumps out while his eyes went hooded. Breaths jagged and uneven, he pulled away, gripping her chin. “Show daddy…ah, good fuckin’ girl. Swallow it.”

“Ahhh,” she moaned, mouth opened as if she was proud before swallowing it. It tasted salty and a bit sweet. Truthfully, perhaps a little vile, but it made her feel dirty. Tommy leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cocked ruined lips. “Thank you, sir.”

“I told you,” he said, teasing. “I know you are just a dirty little slut deep down. Now, are you going to go repent your dirty little sins or do you want to go for a ride with Mr. Shelby?” He tucked himself away and helped her up. “C’mon.” He answered for her, helping her out of the church and to his car. 

She looked up at him, and asked with a teasing glint in her eyes, “What makes you think I’m going to fuck you?” 

“We already established,” he started, pushing the wooden doors open. “You’re a dirty little girl.” 

[call-sign-shark]

Bonus from the series Heaven in Your Eyes (Arthur Shelby x You):

Also, I was completely drunk when I made this. So, sorry for the nonsense.

[copinghex]

I've been thinking about my ocs not sure if I should bring them back so I baked a meme instead

[evita-shelby]

An Eva masterlist for all your #Evacore needs

Banner by @cillmequick

Peaky Blinders

#evacore by others

Tommy x Eva

Between the Shadow and the Soul

Nothing more difficult than love (arranged marriage au)

You read me poetry while i wash the dishes (Eva x Tommy oneshots)

A different sort of man( btsats!Tommy and Eva accidentally switch places with season 3!Tommy and a different version of Eva)

An Unholy Alliance (Grace x Tommy, Tommy x Eva)

The Duke of Saxon Shore (two shot where Duke Shelby exists)

A witch and a rose (eva & Rose Coldwell (@justrainandcoffee)

Tommy x Eva x Heaven (@call-sign-shark)

Garden of Eden

tommy x eva, tommy x Lucy Winters( @mischievouslittlecreature )

look both ways

The Wreckage

tommy x eva ft evie shelby( @novashelby )

a tale of two evies

Mr. Chang

Luca Changretta x Eva

Incantatrice

To love and say goodbye(one shot collection)

Not so different ( crossover with @peakyswritings Heart, Body and Soul fic ft Nina Ferrante)

Luca Changretta x Tommy Shelby x Eva Smith

The View from my window

Jack Nelson x Eva

National Anthem

Like an American

What happens in Vegas (modern!Au)

They didn't know we were seeds(Hunger Games Au)

violent delights( 17th century knight au)

Mrs Nelson(original two shot with canon!Jack)

The Two Mrs Nelsons(part two of mrs nelson)

The Wandering (Jack x Eva ft The Wandering Jew!Rose x Alfie(@justrainandcoffee)

Dreams Unwind(inception au)

Brilliant Cheng

Necromancy

Vēnor

The Eva-verse

Devilry dancing in her blood

Eva x Tommy/Alfie x Rose

Forbidden

Strings of Fate (smut 🔞)

Cillianverse

Love's a State of Mind (Robert Fischer x Eva)

The witch and the scarecrow(Jonathan Crane x Eva)

Mr and Mrs Smith (mr and mrs smith inspired Raymond Leon x Eva)

Frecheville-verse

Two Souls Bound for Hell (Martin O’Feeney x Eva (Aoife))

The Locket (reincarnation au)

The First Date (Teeth from the Royal Hotel(2023) x Eva)

MCU

Of Gods and Witches (Namor/Kukulkan of Talokan x Eva)

Moodboards

Brilliant Chang x Eva

Eva ft Megara

Ship in 5 minutes

Tommy x Eva

Jack x Eva

Luca x Eva

A song of ice and fire ft Peaky Blinders

masterlist

[red-riding-wood]

OC: Charlotte Griffin

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Summary: Charlotte Griffin, on a quest to emerge from her family's dark shadow, becomes a spy in a gang war that puts her loyalties and desires into question as she grows closer to the man who is meant to be her enemy.

WARNINGS for whole story: eventual explicit sexual content and references, explicit violence and gore, mentions of physical abuse, language, ethnic slurs

The steel of the revolver was cold as my fingers brushed its trigger guard, Thomas pressing its handle to the palm of my hand. My fingers curled around it tentatively, though I hoped that he did not notice this. The last time I had held a gun, it had been my twin brother by my side.

“This is a revolver,” he said. “Six shot. Always hold your finger above the trigger until you’re ready to fire.”

Though it could hardly be called a smile, my lip quirked at that. Alexander’s choice of weapon had been a revolver, and the weight felt familiar in my hand, as did the sight of the chamber. But I did not want to talk about such things.

Thomas pulled a small box of ammunition from his pocket, and withdrew a brass bullet.

I cocked a brow at him as words began to form on his lips, and I said, “The next thing I know, you’re going to tell me this is a bullet.”

Thomas hesitated, the brass between his fingertips glinting in the light of the afternoon sun. His eyes seemed to glitter, and the quirk of his lip mirrored mine as he examined me.

“Those are .455 rounds,” he said, and handed one to me. The bullet was even colder against my fingertips, and though they itched to slot it into place, I awaited Thomas’ instruction patiently.

“Now…” he said. “… you see this on the side? You pull that, break it open, and load your bullets.”

Alexander’s revolver had been a Colt .45. An American model, a single action that required each round to be chambered individually. I’d never used a break-action, though I’d known it to be my father’s weapon of choice. Something sinister seemed to crawl its way to the bright of my soul as I did as Thomas asked, smothering the light. I hoped he did not notice the way my fingers trembled as I loaded the sixth bullet.

“All right, close it like that, now – yes, just like that. Now, you’re live.”

“I don’t need to cock the hammer?” I asked, my thumb hovering over the mechanism.

Like Luca, Thomas always seemed to take his time before answering, even if he knew his response. He was currently lighting a cigarette, dragging it along his bottom lip in the way I’d learned to be a habit of his. Only when a puff was blown and his lighter was placed back in his pocket did he say,

“No.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes – I was perhaps becoming too comfortable around him, letting my guard down in a way a spy should not, especially not a spy who dared dance with the enemy – and I situated myself so that the targets were in sight, the winds cordially still today so not a leaf rustled in the apple trees alongside the gongs.

Thomas came to stand beside me as I aimed, a cloud of smoke encircling him, his eyes shadowed by the cap he wore and still squinting against the sun, his thoughts hidden past his inscrutable countenance.   

The Webley kicked hard, though it wasn’t the kick that startled me, but rather, the memory it attempted to drag me into, of Alexander’s body pressed against my spine and his hands hovering over mine to steady my aim, of his chiming laugh when I started crying and shaking, of the warmth of his loving hands as he took the cold gun from me and brought me into his arms.  

“It’s not going to hurt you,” he’d told me. “Only those you point it at.”

Thomas side-eyed me, his lip curling into a tiny smirk that seemed to both humiliate and infuriate me. Unlike Alexander, his amusement was more smug than it was playful, though I was not a child anymore. And I was determined that he didn’t see me as such, that he didn’t see me as the little posh girl from London who was too frightened to shoot a gun.

“I’m all right,” I said, a little too defensively, and I attempted to steady my shaking hand as I eyed the gong; the bullet had hit the outer edge. “Let me try again.”

I sucked in a breath, and I banished the memories of Alexander, letting his warmth and his lovely laugh fade away, letting the cold bite of the winter air seize my marrow past my coat and flesh and bone, letting my boots sink into the soil of the pasture, letting the sounds of birds whelm the silence. And on my exhale, I squeezed the trigger.

I recovered better this time from the recoil, and my eyes remained focused on my target, on the bullet that had crept just an inch or two closer to the bullseye.

Thomas’ smirk remained.

I took another shot. And another.

And his smirk waned. And while my flesh crawled and while I knew, from the screaming light in my soul, that I should not have been pleased, my own lip tugged into the slightest of smiles, the hot rush of adrenaline spiking my veins.

Only when the sixth shot was fired and I lowered the Webley did my chest heave a tremulous breath, and I swallowed against a knotted throat, as if forcing back the doubt and the pressure, and, most important of all, the memories.

Thomas stepped forward, making his way to the front of the range, and I followed as he mumbled past his cigarette,

“So, when did you learn to shoot, eh?”

As we came further to the gong, my eyes raked across the impressions the bullets had made, all offset from the bullseye by perhaps a few centimetres. Not perfect, but far from awful.

“You don’t reckon it’s beginner’s luck?” I said, coming to stand by the gongs.

“Not with that grouping.” Thomas pointed with his cigarette to the impressions left by the bullets.

I swallowed again, and studied my grouping so I did not have to meet his eye as I said, “My brother taught me.”

The slightest whisper of breezes stirred the wisps of hair from my eyes, and  I shivered beneath my thick overcoat.

“I hear you have a lot of brothers.”

The unease in my hesitation was palpable, so much so that I knew Thomas could sense it. Anyone could. I had been trying so hard not to think of Alexander and his mischievous blue eyes and his warm embrace.

“My twin brother. Alexander,” I said past the ever-growing knot in my throat. “He used to say I needed to learn, to protect myself from bad men.”

“Bad men.” He mulled over the word, before quirking his lip. I met his eyes to find a glitter in their aquamarine depths. “Like me?”

“Yes,” I said, having found the irony in my business here but only tasting it on my tongue now. “Like you.”

“Your brother was wise.” Thomas handed me six more bullets.

“He was.” I swung my head away from his gaze as I reloaded the Webley. “Reckless, but, clever. He caught on faster than anyone in that family. Including me.” I slotted the last bullet into place with lead in my gut, eager to change the subject from my brother if only to someone who hadn’t left a fracture in my soul. “Except for maybe my cousin. The only one who seemed to get away. Granted, she went to live with the Gypsies – that’s what my brother said. She likely went mad.”

“But you stayed.”

The Webley snapped shut, and another silence fell between us. I found myself looking him in the eye again only to find an unexpected intrigue in bright blues.

“I stayed.”

“And why did you stay?”

“For my brothers, mostly,” I answered in earnest, my tone taking on a grave note as I said my next words, “My father was a bad man, Mr. Shelby. They needed me.”

“And yet, here you are.”

My lip quirked. And I spared myself one moment and one moment alone to feel an amount of guilt for having left. Who was there now to take care of Ivan when he drank too much? Who was there to keep the others safe?

No one, and yet… there wouldn’t have been even if I’d stayed. My father would’ve found a suitor for me eventually, would’ve married me off to form some allegiance with the Solomons or the Sabinis.

“I started to listen to my ambitions rather than my heart,” I told Thomas, knowing full well that the threat of an unhappy marriage wasn’t the only thing that drove me away. Something had pulled me here; for whatever reason, Small Heath, with all of its bad men and its relentless bloodshed, had whispered thoughts of a throne to me.

Though, I didn’t necessarily want to tell Thomas these thoughts, either. The last thing I needed was to have him suspicious of me desiring more than what he was offering. So, I changed the subject,

“And who taught you to shoot, Mr. Shelby?”

A puff of smoke spiced the winter air, and he rolled the cigarette between his fingers, gaze fixating somewhere on the distance as if I had ceased to exist. He didn’t look me in the eye when he finally said,

“Let’s head back, shall we? See if we can group all your shots.” Cigarette wedged back in his teeth, he turned, black coat swishing at his heels, but I kept my feet planted in the sodden earth.

“Was it your father?” I called to him, raising my voice over the faint bluster of the wind as he walked away. “Most men learn from their fathers.”

He stopped, head sinking just below his shoulders, as if the weight of the world was finally beginning to bury him. I yearned to witness his countenance, to learn what emotions he hid beneath those eyes of frozen tides. And he turned, slowly, his cigarette cast to the earth and stubbed out with the toe of his boot, as if the taste were suddenly foul.

The cap rose to reveal those aquamarine eyes, and when he looked at me, I thought I almost detected a rage burning in those icy depths. “My father was a bad man.”

“Worse than you?” I cocked a brow.

Thomas Shelby nodded, slowly, the flame of rage flickered out, as if silenced by the winds, silver fragments of his eyes a hollow vestige of what once had been, just like the tendrils of smoke that rose from beneath the toe of his boot.

“Worse than me.”

Though eager to pry, I allowed another silence to stretch between us. I found that there was more to learn about people from the spaces between which they spoke than their actual words, but his eyes were squinted tight against the glare of the setting sun, and the peak of his cap still shadowed them in a mysterious dark that was fitting of his cryptic nature.

“That reminds me,” I said, tone shifting as I walked forward, deciding to release his gaze so as not to make my curiosity overly known. “I wanted to ask your permission to take a day or so to visit London. I have business there. But I can be back as soon as I can.”

“What sort of business?” he asked as I fell into stride beside him, and a breath slowly hissed from my nose as I recalled Aberama’s threat, as the golden line of the horizon winked like that of the citrine amulet I would need to fetch.

“Business with bad men,” I said, and caught his gaze out of the corner of my eye. Something flickered through it that was too fleeting to catch, and it ate at the pit of my stomach. But I clarified, the word bitter on my tongue, “Family.”

“Very well, Charlotte. We can go over the details when we get inside.”

And across the sprawling acres, a maid in black and white waved a frantic hand in the air to catch our attention, the other clutching at her skirts as she rushed from Arrow House. Frances, as I recalled, her withered frame unmistakable even at this distance.

A look passed between Thomas and I, and I pressed the weight of the revolver back into his gloved hand. Whatever was going on, it was surely better off in red hands than white. 

---

I tried not to betray the way my hand trembled around the phone as I set it down on the finely veneered cedar-wood desk of Thomas Shelby’s personal home office.

But Thomas did not pay such subtleties any mind. “What’s going on?” he demanded, his tone darkened by an urgency I had not yet witnessed from the collected gang leader. His fists were balled, shoulders hunching as he rested his weight on the desk.

“It’s Matteo. Luca’s requested a meeting… at one of the local churches. He says I need to be there in thirty minutes.” My tone, thankfully, did not share the same trepidation as my hands. I had learned to exert more control over my words than my body language.

“Why?” Thomas’ eyes darted across my features, impatient for an answer. It was almost unsettling how much haste brewed beneath his demeanor. “Did he say why?”

“He did not,” I said, my mind whirling, thinking back to my last interaction with Luca – the blood on his desk and gloves, the way he had dismissed me so bitterly. “I have a very bad feeling about this, Mr. Shelby. We may not have ended on the safest terms.”

“We’ll do as he says. But I’m ordering ten men on horseback, and three in cars, on the road. What church is it?”

Fear prickled my flesh. I shook my head. “Mr. Shelby, I think it’s much better that I go alone. I’ve come this far; I don’t want to lose his trust. Sending reinforcements could be more dangerous than sending me alone.”

For one moment in which I swore he could’ve heard the raucous beating of the heart that nearly chattered my teeth, those twin blues bore into my soul, piercing through the layers of carefully-constructed dignity and calm, striking the pitch black of my soul where both fear and something too dark to fully discern dwelled.

For the briefest of moments, I thought I might’ve glimpsed something like concern in the bright of his eyes.

“Fine,” he said, at last sparing me from the icy hooks of his gaze. “I’ll have a mare saddled for you in the stable. You know I don’t trust taxis, Charlotte. I trust horses. Your father was a regular at the races, always placed a hefty sum of coin on his bets. I imagine with your upbringing, you were taught to ride?”

Alexander had been the one to teach me to ride, not my father. Sometimes a horse could take you places an automobile couldn’t, places away from watchful eyes and cruel hands, from biting sneers and bitter disapproval. Away from misery and sin.

I could do nothing but nod, trying to swallow my heart since it had crept to my throat, and the heels of my boots clicked against the flooring as I made my departure, knowing Frances would await me on the other side of the door to escort me through the labyrinth of the manor.

As I reached for the doorknob, I paused, my eyes catching on a photograph on one of the tables. A blonde woman, her features fine yet striking, her eyes a pale grey and her flesh a milky white, her head held high despite the weight of the sapphire strung around her neck. Her hair was tied back but held unmistakable curls, and though she donned a brilliant wedding gown and she smiled, some kind of sadness brewed beneath those pale irises and seemed to reach for the empty of my soul, sending a cold shiver through my bones, as if her ghost was reaching for me as Alexander’s had.

She must’ve been Thomas’ former wife, I reasoned. I’d glimpsed portraits of her around the house, hadn’t paid much mind until now. My eyes wandered to the lock of champagne hair at the base of the frame, the one that coiled around the little red ribbon that had been placed alongside it. Grace Burgess, her name was in life; she had been killed on order of the Changrettas. 

I looked back to Thomas now, where he sat in his chair, flipping through some documents rather tensely, a coil of smoke rising from the cigarette he clenched between two shaking fingers and his dark brow sewn by stress.

“Mr. Shelby…” I wasn’t quite sure why the words left my chest, but they were gentle, perhaps softer than I had anticipated them to be. As if they came from the dwindling light still shining past the black of my soul.

Pale eyes met mine again, brow raising. He took a puff of his cigarette. “Yes, Charlotte?”

I managed a small, sad smile, not unlike the woman in the photograph’s, and shook my head, unsure of what I had wanted to say.

“Nothing, Mr. Shelby,” I said, and bid him farewell, hoping that the heavy door that swung shut behind me would swallow whatever weakness, whatever strange kindness had consumed me in that brief shift of reality.

---

Dusty was the air aroused by the drum of hooves against the pavement, and it reeked of rubbish and soot in these narrow streets. I didn’t think I would ever become accustomed to the sour undertones of urine and the brawling men who threw themselves about as if they were wrestling children.

The air was shattered by the sharp crack of a bottle that smashed against the brick of a colonnade; the streets were beginning to widen, lighten with the faint trace of dying light through the smog-ridden air.  

I eyed the coat that was swishing at my heels in time with my horse’s strides, the ink black of the thick fabric dimming gradually with each fleck of dust that it collected. The mare’s beautiful white coat was greying, sullied by such filth. I nearly scowled, but set my gaze ahead, to the dark swathing of ebony beneath the awning of the ivory church.

The evening’s light limned the church’s colourful, stained windows in a graceful sort of beauty, and shadowed the recesses that were hidden by the surrounding buildings in a sinister sort of dark. Of course Luca had chosen this place. It was fitting for someone who seemed to hide the wretched half of his soul.

Anxiety brewed beneath my flesh as I pulled gently back on the reins, the mare seeming to sense this as she nickered to announce our presence, cone-shaped ears swivelling back to me before settling on the building ahead. She pawed at the concrete, the jarring scrape of her hoof tensing my shoulders as I swung gracefully down from her saddle. She nickered again as I led her to the hitching post, still trying to drum something up from the barren earth, as if calling upon the souls of the damned. She began to thrash against her reins, dark eyes flaring wildly.

“Shhh,” I said softly, my leather-clad fingers ghosting her snout, letting her smell me, my other hand reaching round to her sturdy neck to lightly brush off some of the dust that had collected on a coat that had once been pure as the snow.

“I know you’re afraid,” I told her with the same gentleness in my tone that I had revealed to Thomas. I glanced down her line of sight to the church, a shudder tracing my flesh as I imagined Luca awaiting me. “But you cannot show them.” My eyes darted around to the onlookers who were beginning to take notice of the mare’s display.

She eased if only slightly under my touch and my words, and so I led her to the hitching post beside the nearest building for good measure. A hot breath whickered against my hair, stirring up fine strands of champagne locks. I couldn’t help but smile, and patted her affectionately as I tied her to the post.

My smile faded as I approached the door to the church, brushing what I could of the dust off from my coat. A cold chill seemed to work its way beneath my flesh, and I took a sharp breath in as I attempted to force down my nervousness, my doubts.

Luca may have worn two faces, but so could I.

I knew that I courted death each time I met with the man, and I knew that last time, I had dared too close to the flames of his wrath. I knew that someday, perhaps, I would no longer prove useful to Luca, that the false information from Thomas would run dry or he would find someone else for his dirty work, but perhaps that someday had drawn closer than I had imagined.

But surely not even Luca would rid of me on holy ground?

The church was barren, quiet, the air stale, but not a complete assault on the senses. Rather, the scent of myrrh and the faintest trace of smoke glided across an oily odour that indicated a fresh paint; I slipped a leather riding glove from my hand and ran a finger across the benches. It came up wet.

I rubbed the oil paint between my fingers and turned my attention to the black-coated man who stood before the altar, a beaded rosary clasped between slender fingers and held to the Virgin Mary statue as if in offering. As I approached, my heels clicked against floorboards that groaned and wailed as if caging spirits of the underworld, as if kept at bay by the rusted nails and splintered alder.

The smell of the incense grew stronger, the myrrh almost innerving in comparison to the piss and grime of the streets. The man’s head was bowed, hat tipped to obscure his features. But I would’ve recognized his voice anywhere.

“So it seems you are not of Hell after all, Miss Griffin.”           

His voice was serpentine, each syllable hissed more than spoken, though the undertones seemed to rumble low from his chest.

The rosary was tucked away into a pocket of his overcoat, and the silhouette of a face tilted towards me.

When was the last time he had called me by that wretched name? I tried not to dwell on it too much, tried not to remember the cold feel of the Webley in my hands and how it had reminded me of my father.

I smirked, once more forcing down the bitterness and the questions and the doubts, and said, “Out of the two of us, I wouldn’t think my soul would’ve been the one in question.” My voice, in contrast, seemed to pitch too high.

We were a few feet apart now, and the incense that burned on the altar masked the scent of his usual cologne. But pale green eyes fell upon mine beneath the shadow of his hat. From the last rays of the daylight, the windows bled upon pale features, softening a sharp cheekbone.

I took a step forward, heart thudding in my chest, and reached my hand out to remove his hat with a smirk still plastered on my painted lips. I was tempted to rub the oil of the paint across the felt, for I knew how much he prided himself in his appearance, but I switched hands and relieved it from a neat bed of jet-black hair. The back of my hand brushed along his jaw, the contact intentional.

“You know, it’s a great disrespect for a man to not remove his hat upon entering a house of God,” I told him.

“Then maybe you’re right,” he said.

“I’m right about a lot of things,” I said, and placed the hat beside the incense. “Just like I’m right in assuming that you didn’t forget to remove it. You just wanted an excuse to have me this close to you.” I paused, my eyes seeking his for any signs of emotion before adding, low yet soft, “Again.”

Pale greens narrowed, flitting across my own features. He was studying me. He seemed to do that a lot. And as two-faced as he was, not even he could hide the wick of burning sin that seemed to set them alight for just a mere moment.

And then he was turning his back, and fitting a toothpick between his teeth; an angular jaw moved against the grain of the wood. He was most likely in contemplation.

“If I wanted to be close to you, piccola spia, you’d be begging to never see me again.”

A tickle of a current darted along my ribs at his words, and I cocked my head at him. “Is that a threat, or a flirtation?”

The toothpick twirled slowly between his lips, and he turned to catch me in the side of his gaze. “While you know I enjoy our pleasantries, don’t make the mistake of thinking this is a social call. I summoned you here because I have a lead on Shelby’s whereabouts.”

“Of course,” I said with a tight smile. Using people was the way of the world. I hadn’t forgotten that I was still just a tiny pawn in his game.

“Tommy Shelby is entering a fighter into a boxing tournament come the end of winter.” Luca wound his way back to me, the boards groaning again beneath his weight, lost souls screeching. “High stakes. High bets.” His overcoat settled at his heels as he came to stand before me again, closer than we’d been before, as if to prove some sort of point. I tried in vain to disguise my rapid blink as a hot breath fanned across my cheeks and that damned toothpick shifted in his mouth.

“As you will come to learn, Luca…” I purred. “… I have many uses.” My brows raised a fraction, my eyes once again seeking his for that inkling of desire that sometimes graced their pestilent green. I received more than my wish; they swept down across the corset that hugged my stomach tight to the curve of my hips, and dragged leisurely up to the hint of cleavage that my gossamer scarf failed to hide.

“But brawling is not one of them,” I said, as his eyes met mine again. They were brighter, if only by a tinge.

“He will be there, in the audience, along with what’s left of his little gang,” Luca told me. “I need you to get my men and myself in.”

“You’re going to kill Thomas in the middle of a tournament? That’s bold, even for you Italians.”

His lip curved into the semblance of a smile around his toothpick, and he tilted his head at me this time, eyes narrowing again. “You doubt my ability, piccola spia?”

My eyes roved across him, at the toothpick that had stilled between thin lips, at the faint gleam of mischief in his eye, and I smiled back.

“That wasn’t what I said, Luca. I have no doubt in your abilities… but my answer is no.”

His smile fell slack, and the mischief was gone from his eyes. As he was rendered speechless, I turned to the alter, wafting a gout of the incense towards me and inhaling deeply, relishing in the aromatic scent of the myrrh.

I know you’re afraid, my own words echoed in my skull. But you cannot show them.

The fabric of an overcoat teased the line of my hip, and a rush of stale air stirred my skirt faintly from my ankles. A hot breath raked down the side of my neck, fluttering the threads of champagne locks that seemed to dance at the corners of my vision. The shiver that ran down the length of my spine was from the incense, and nothing more.

“No? Your answer to me is ‘no’? You’re fortunate, piccola spia, that you are not put down like the rest of those filthy dogs. But you’re not fortunate enough to answer me with ‘no’.” His toothpick rattled in his teeth with a bitter wrath.

I still had not become used to this side of him, this temper that flared beneath the surface of such poise and control. But unlike him I kept my calm despite the mad thrum of my heart against my ribs; my hand stilled where it wafted the incense, and I spoke evenly, “I still have a reputation to maintain among the ranks of those ‘dogs’, Luca. And I will not be caught letting you in to the event.”

My throat tightened, collapsed beneath the force he applied to his fingers, rings hard and cold against my sensitive flesh. I sputtered, and gasped, the scent of the incense tapering as did my oxygen.

Green eyes flashed, and a broken toothpick hung, suspended by one thread of wood, from his lip. His nostrils flared and his body pressed close to mine, backing me into the sharp edge of the altar, as he looked me in the eye.

“You knew about the event?” he half-growled, half-hissed.

I gulped beneath his grasp, and parted my lips to attempt a defense, but tuned my ears to the sound of a whinny and the click of a chambered bullet outside the glass of one of the majestic windows.

We both quieted; his grip loosened, and a glare was cast upon me before his attention turned to the window, and incense flooded my aching lungs.

As I sputtered, I glimpsed the silhouette of a horse and rider outside the stained glass.

“You brought the cavalry, I see,” Luca said, and clicked his tongue disapprovingly against the roof of his mouth. The toothpick fell to the floor and he swept a few stray wisps of black hair from his forehead.

Of course Thomas had disobeyed my request. But for what purpose, I wasn’t quite certain of. Images of the blonde woman with sad, grey eyes returned to me, haunting me.

“A man won’t even remove his hat in the presence of God... who knows what else he might do to me in here,” I said, my voice slightly raspy from the hold he’d had on my breath, but my tone dipped in a sultry tincture.

Chest still heaving with an ireful breath but clearly attempting to calm himself, Luca’s gaze flashed to me again in a strange yet satisfying mixture of virulence and curiosity.

“Be there. Have a Mr. Bennet on the guest list. And my men, too. Or this one…” The brass of the bullet gleamed in the soft bath of the emerald and magenta light of the window as he held it up to me. “… this one’s for you.”

NEXT CHAPTER coming soon!

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